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Clarifying: The ME2 launch trailer was a finely edited mess of cutscenes that suggested very little "player agency". This trailer is similar, and I'm not reading much into it. Going by past Mass Effect advertising, Bioware is going to keep the story/dialogue very much in the game (and out of the trailers).

My beef is with some of the new game mechanics they seem to have included:

Would you mind if they were in there as an option? From what I recall, there are various assistance options already in the first two games that can easily be turned off. Hopefully the points you have highlighted will be the same.

Would you mind if they were in there as an option? From what I recall, there are various assistance options already in the first two games that can easily be turned off. Hopefully the points you have highlighted will be the same.

It would be great if they could be turned off.
It still speaks of a laziness in design if cover isn't evident enough to the player to begin with, or if cinematic scenes are foisted upon the player instead of blending in effortlessly, like in the Half-Life series. But most of us play ME for the story anyway, and it won't be actively distressing if those prompts from the screenshots don't appear.

What assistances did the the first two games offer? (I remember ME1 had an "Auto aim" option left in from the console version that didn't actually do anything, but that's about it.)

Finally, thanks for mentioning the PC gamer podcast- Tom Francis' description is exciting; pretty much exactly what one wants to hear.

I only really remember aiming as well. I remember four options of which one was aiming, another was companions using abilities automatically. Can't really remember the others. Nothing quite as visually blatant as those in the pictures you've linked, anyway.

I'm new to the Mass Effect games, having only recently completed the original and in the middle of the sequel, but it's quite clear to me that the first game wanted to be an action game more than anything else. The improvements to combat and the mission structure of the second only lends itself to this theory, imo, and I'm not at all surprised that there seems to be more streamlining intended for the third.

I've given this some thought and came to the conclusion that I don't give a crap whether it's gonna be a gears of war console conversion or point&click adventure. It's Mass Effect, there's gonna be a great story and Liara and Tali and everything! Yay!

For me Mass Effect 2 was better than the first. But I play it mostly for the story, characters, and the hybrid RPG/FPS. I have to admit that I enjoyed much more Borderlands than ME2 though.

I enjoyed the premise of ME2 and the characters were entertaining and I preferred the combat to that of ME1, however I did feel that Bioware had stripped it back a tad too much in terms of inventory and player/world interaction. An occasional bit of puzzle solving wouldn't of necessarily gone amiss. Though I think that perhaps contextually that might of seemed out of place given the overarching narrative direction and drive of the main mission. With the first game it was a little odd that you would take time out from saving the galaxy from a galactic threat to save an old ladies cat or some such.

A BioWare game with a great story?

How dare people enjoy the fruits of a company you seemingly despise.

In fact I'd like to know exactly what it is that you didn't like about the story of Mass effect 1 & 2. What particular elements didn't sit well with you and why? What particular beats didn't work for you?

Most BioWare games have great stories. I think it's fairly well agreed that the problem with them is that those stories are derivative, both of traditional works in the genres they belong and of other Bioware games.

It's a story that's been told a thousand times before. But the reason it was told a thousand times is because it was a good story. See also: tropes are tropes because they work.

I'm fairly sure at one point on the old forum Wizardry said something fairly dismissive about story in games, somewhat along the lines of John Carmacks infamous 'Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important.'. So it's surprising that he gets so irate over what Bioware get upto tbh. Still I'm fascinated to read his detailed breakdown as to what was wrong with the storyline in Mass Effect so far.

The key to enjoying the Mass Effect franchise (after the somewhat confused first one, anyway) is clearly to put aside any notion that it's an RPG and simply enjoy the ride. It's a shooter with some conversations, some (largely meaningless, but still engaging at times) choices, some lovely cinematics, and a nice sense of adventure. Drop your expectations and enjoy it for what it is, or simply ignore it if what it is doesn't appeal to you. I do agree that mislabeling it as an RPG is just unproductive and misleading, however, as it only serves to 1) confuse the kiddies about what that acronym means and 2) fuel rage due to false expectations among old farts that do know what it means.

however I did feel that Bioware had stripped it back a tad too much in terms of inventory

I don't think this is anywhere near as big of an issue as people make it out to be. The inventory system in ME1 was terrible for its interface, but more to the point, your inventory would get filled with items that were absolute junk, especially once you got access to Master Gear. I don't lament the loss of having like 10 Lancer I assault rifles kicking around and cluttering up the screen. The shifting of different kinds of ammo to powers just streamlines the whole thing, I mean only a few types of ammo were worth using anyway. It seems sometimes like people argue for "more stuff" simply for the sake of having more stuff.